


Show Your Work

by taxicab12



Series: we change together [10]
Category: Leverage
Genre: But none of these disasters could survive high school math, F/M, Hardison doesn’t do his share of the dishes, M/M, Parker is good at math in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25176175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taxicab12/pseuds/taxicab12
Summary: The mastermind sat at the kitchen table, eyes trained on the page in front of her as she carefully considered and assessed the problem. Her focus was unbreakable, her tactics cunning. Nothing could stump her.“It’s 73,” Parker said, sliding the math homework back in front of her daughter.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer
Series: we change together [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792609
Comments: 12
Kudos: 121





	Show Your Work

**Author's Note:**

> You can read a hot meal and someone to listen (#2 in this series) for more context but it isn’t necessary.

The mastermind sat at the kitchen table, eyes trained on the page in front of her as she carefully considered and assessed the problem. Her focus was unbreakable, her tactics cunning. Nothing could stump her.

“It’s 73,” Parker said, sliding the math homework back in front of her daughter.

“But how do you know that?” Evie asked, biting the back end of her pencil.

“Because that’s how math works.”

“But I have to show my work.”

“What work is there to show? It’s 73.”

“How do you know that?”

Parker scowled and stared down the page once more. “It just is,” she said, finally.

Evie groaned. “You’re no help, Mom.”

The name caught Parker by surprise, as it always did. Owen, their older son, never called her Mom. He had been sixteen when he’d come to live with them and now was twenty-one, away at school in New York. He had been a child, but old enough that adapting was hard. But Evie, at fourteen, sometimes hardly seemed to remember a time before this was her life, before she had come to them at ten.

“Ask Hardison,” she said, very delayed.

“He’s worse than you are,” Evie said. “He doesn’t even pretend to know how to do math.”

“Hey!” Hardison poked his head out of his office. “I can hear you. And I can do math.”

“Fine,” she said. “You can’t do  _ algebra_. Happy, Dad?”

“It’s not my fault they got to go adding letters to it. This crap is what calculators are for.”

“Oh, come look at this, you baby.” Parker stuck her tongue out at him.

“I know you ain’t calling me a baby, because you can’t do it either.”

“I can do math.” She rolled her eyes. “But Evie has to show her work. I don’t know what there is to show.”

“Like the steps, babe.” He leaned over the table, looking at the problem.

“What steps? It’s just math.”

“Yeah, but you gotta do it step by step.”

“I don’t know how to do it step by step. It’s just 73.”

“I can just google it, Mom,” Evie said.

“Yes!” Hardison kissed the top of her head. “See, I knew you were my daughter.”

“Well, can the internet tell you the steps?” Parker turned up her nose.

“Yes, babe,” Hardison said. “Cause, see, the internet has these things called calculators that do math for you and make algebra class pointless.”

“Well, I bet it can’t do math faster than me.”

“What’s going on now?” Eliot stepped into the kitchen, balancing two paper grocery bags in his arms.

“Daddy!” Evie jumped up, planting a kiss on his cheek. “How was your day?”

These names hadn’t been a thing they’d discussed when they took Owen and Evie in. Evie had begun calling them Mom and Dad all on her own, and while she called both Hardison and Eliot Dad, only Eliot was ever referred to as Daddy.

“Day was good. Help me with these groceries, honey,” he said. “Then we can figure out the math.”

“Did you get those cookies I like?” Parker asked.

“I can make better ones,” he said, putting down the bags. “I’m not buying any of that store bought crap.”

“Well, you better make me cookies then.” She pouted.

“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her a small salute.

The two of them worked quickly. Hardison chattered on about the newest game he was obsessed with, which was really Eliot’s fault for asking about his day.

Parker just silently watched, studying the three of them.

“Oh, I remember this,” Eliot said, settling at the kitchen table and looking at the math homework. “Hand me the pencil and I’ll show you.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Evie said.

“Have you talked to Owen today?” Eliot asked as he worked.

“Not today, why?” Hardison raised a brow.

“I just got off the phone with him, said he’s coming home for spring break.”

“What, he doesn’t want to go get drunk on an island somewhere or something?”

“He said he wants to come home. I told him I’d send him the money for a plane ticket.”

“Or,” Evie said with a grin, “we could go to New York to see him.”

Eliot scowled at her, but there was no substance behind it. “Just because he’s on break, don’t mean you are. You have to go to school, darlin’.”

She gave him a pout.

“Don’t go copying your mother,” Eliot said. “It doesn’t work on me.”

“Does too,” Parker said.

He handed Evie back her homework. “Make sense?”

“Oh! Yeah, I get it.”

“Good. I’m making tacos.” He stood, opening the package of tortillas, then patting his pockets. “Left my phone in the car.”

Evie silently watched him leave, then pulled out her phone and began furiously typing.

“What are you doing?” Parker asked.

She grinned. “Googling it. Dad doesn’t know what he’s doing either.”

Hardison laughed. “He thinks he’s so smart.”

“To be fair, he’s the only one who actually, you know, attended high school.”

“That’s fair.” Parker nodded. 

“Hey, I went to high school.” Hardison stole a tortilla off the counter and took a bite of it.

“Let me rephrase, the only one to actually  _ attend _ classes at a high school.”

“I can ground you, you know.”

“What’s going on?” Eliot snatched the half-eaten tortilla from Hardison as he walked past.

“Your daughter’s a smart ass,” he said.

“Yeah, well it ain’t me she’s getting that from.” Eliot scowled. “Go wash up, Evie, and come help me.”

Washing her hands in the kitchen wasn’t an option because it had been Hardison’s turn to do dishes, which meant the dishes would stay there until it was Eliot’s turn.

“I’ve got us a job,” Eliot said, once she was gone, hiding it, not because their work was a secret from her, but because she would beg to come along instead of going to school.

“At the grocery store?” Hardison asked. “What, produce coming alive and attacking people?”

“That’d be cool,” Parker said.

“I’ll tell you later.” He went back to cooking, looking up only to press a kiss to Evie’s cheek when she returned.

“You all right, babe?” Hardison put an arm around Parker. “You seem quiet tonight.”

“Everything’s good,” she said, looking around at her family. “Everything’s great.”

Hardison followed her gaze, smiling lazily. “Yeah, it is.”

“Since everyone’s in a good mood,” Evie said, “any chance I can get a new laptop?”

Hardison’s face fell. “And what the hell is wrong with your laptop?”

She suddenly seemed very interested in the stovetop.

“We’ll talk about it.” Eliot laughed.

Parker smiled, happier than she had probably ever been. Lately, life only seemed to get better.

And it would get better still, when Eliot made Parker’s favorite cookies after dinner, and when Evie’s homework came back with a big 8/10 written at the top (which was fair because she had looked up nearly all of them), and when Owen came home and all five of them were together and happy.

Parker was the mastermind, the thief, and there was a time when that had been all that mattered. But sometimes, nights like this, the idea of retirement almost didn’t sound quite so crazy. 

Almost.


End file.
